


Under the Cliffs

by chantefable



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous Relationships, Attraction, Canon Timeline, Cold War, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Partnership, Post-Canon, Secrets, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soviet Union, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-05-02 00:14:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5226569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chantefable/pseuds/chantefable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya realizes that Napoleon Solo is his soulmate, and he is determined not to let this critical piece of intelligence fall into the wrong hands.</p><p>For instance, Solo’s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Cliffs

Swept away by realization, Illya stands, unsteady on his feet, and fumbles with the set of the American’s lock picks. He feels like he is drifting. The air around Illya is cool and dense; he must be kept upright by a supernatural force. He only seems to stand tall as Solo works the vault door open. He has already crumbled and been scattered in a thousand pieces. 

All of them in the shape of his soulmark, the island of Saint Helena.

It is uneasy to go on after that, but Illya does. He plays the part where his lines are made of mockery and grudging camaraderie, ‘Loving your work, Cowboy’. The Cowboy does not notice: he just keeps marching on, manically following his own plan and the orders from his side, the CIA. Only ever doing his own thing, isn’t he? _Napoleon_. Illya is a little nauseous. 

Both the American’s cavalier attitude and his unchivalrous but obscenely handsome smile painfully grate on Illya’s nerves. Now, with the added weight of the realization that Solo is his soulmate, Illya feels like his insides have been crushed into a bloody mess.

When he loses Solo, sees that the back of the boat is empty and beyond, there’s nothing but swiftly rolling dark waves, Illya is momentarily horrified. And momentarily relieved. Gone.

If Solo is gone, it is awful. But easier.

Unfortunately, Solo is not gone completely. He reappears when Illya himself is supposed to be dead and gone, and promptly gets under Illya’s skin and past his defenses with all the subtlety of fireworks on that Fourth of July of theirs. Heimlich maneuver, arms around Illya, slick cool skin against Illya’s skin and water everywhere. The American saves Illya’s life and now everything is awful. Now, everything is even worse.

Getting out of the water and onto a little Vespa, Illya is dazed and confused. He decides, at some point between gripping Solo’s flanks with his chilled hands and climbing off the seat in Rome, stiff and numb, that he is never ever going to tell. It’s a huge liability. 

It isn’t even about three to five to eight years in a correction camp. With Illya’s occupation, he harbors no illusions and is well aware that, if need be, the department can slap any kind of accusations on him and do whatever they want. The actual article of the law and the formal prosecution are completely irrelevant. If he stumbles and fails in the line of service, he’ll be branded a traitor, a conspirator, a thief, a sodomite, anything and everything, the full package to execution and property confiscation. It’s a good thing mother is already dead, but.

Illya resolves not to stumble.

Solo is a huge rock in his way. A cliff that sneers at Illya’s smooth sailing. He’s a fucking island.

Illya refuses to be marooned.

He’ll never tell.

While Solo pleases Victoria Vinciguerra in his room, Illya watches Gaby Teller get drunk and wonders, plaintively, why it couldn’t have been her. He lets her beat him up because someone should.

Illya doesn’t see the American’s mark until he is getting him out of Uncle Rudi’s chair. It is a wonder that Illya sees _anything_ after his mind catches up with what that butcher has been doing to Solo. Illya’s chest constricts and his heart skips a beat, as if forcing his soul outside, closer to Napoleon. Illya is furious, stumbling through a red haze. Everything is a bit of a blur. 

But he sees the soulmark on the American’s exposed, pale skin, glistening with sickly sweat. He sees it clearly. Solovetsky Islands. Again, Illya stumbles, reeling and dazed. He had been there with the navy cadets corps, secret training that was never listed in his dossier. It could not have been leaked to the Americans. The mark simply cannot be a ruse of the CIA to get him to trust Solo, cannot be anything but the horrible awkward truth. Why there, though? Why not the outline of his beloved Zelenograd, damn, why not Moscow. Why the naval base that had felt like a purgatory, dead monastery buildings imbued with the suffering of thousands? Why the place that haunted him for years, gave him nightmares painting vivid pictures of the recent past that none of them had seen or talked about at the base, even though everyone had felt it viscerally, echoing against the sorrowful waters of the Onega Bay. Why the place where Illya had finally, abruptly grown up and truly realized that the whole world was his prison.

And now he is marked on the skin of his soulmate with the location of the Solovki prison camp.

Why is everything so awful and complicated?

Illya is so dazed, floating on the waves of this horrible discovery, that he completely misses Rudi Teller catching fire in his own contraption. Later, he cannot even remember how he and Solo get out.

But he remembers the chilling, oddly soothing realization that there is no way, absolutely no way Napoleon Solo can possibly know what the dark shape on his skin stands for. And even if, by some dreadful chance, he does, there is no way for him to connect those small cold White Sea islands that bear the scars of futile labor and terror to Illya. Absolutely none. Not even a footnote in a dossier. Illya resolves to keep it that way. He’ll never tell.

He doesn’t say anything. Not when they are chasing the wrong bomb all over the Vinciguerra island, not when the ‘Diadema’ is swallowed by fire, not when his handler tells him to do what is necessary. It is necessary to kill Solo, his soulmate.

It feels awfully complicated, red-hot fiery rage and cold terror rolling over Illya in shockingly painful waves. It is awful and difficult, but not impossible. As long as Illya doesn’t say anything.

And if Solo is dead, there will be no one to tell.

Illya walks into his room, ready. He fumbles the whiskey tumbler, he almost fumbles the gun, but he is ready to do what is necessary. Then Solo turns and tosses Illya’s father’s watch at him, and Illya’s resolve is shattered against the cliffs. He stumbles through the wreckage, watching Solo’s sea-blue eyes watch him and unable to piece himself back together, and then their MI5 handler announces that they are _his_ now, all three of them. And Illya is truly marooned, stuck in a place with no escape, acronym: U.N.C.L.E..

He’ll never tell, he thinks, draining his glass in Rome.

In Istanbul, Solo steals the wind from his sails and finds out himself, the damn thief.

He walks into Illya’s room without knocking, stomps heavily through Illya’s territory with complete disrespect, like being here is his due. _Napoleon_ , damn him. He barges in, trampling the remains of Illya’s blood-spattered, torn clothing and slides to his knees in front of Illya’s bed, right where Illya is treating the deep bullet graze on his leg. The wound is nothing.

But Napoleon’s proximity, and the way Illya’s thighs are spread open, the soaked-through gauze doing nothing to hide the outline of the island of Saint Helena high on Illya’s inner thigh, and the way the air seems to be sucked out of the room until there is nothing left but the thundering sound of Illya’s blood in his ears, like the roar of the storm at sea – _that_ is awful.

The way Napoleon’s blue eyes take in the red on the white gauze, slide past the red on Illya’s pale skin and focus on the dark brown shape – that is awful. The flash of recognition and understanding in Napoleon’s eyes is worse.

Smart bastard, damn him.

Illya is drifting again, fumbling his awkward excuses and explanations. It’s the blood loss. It’s the closeness, Napoleon’s hands on his thigh, redressing the wound and giving the soulmark a lingering caress. Illya shivers.

He smells the salt in his own blood and a hint of it in Napoleon’s sweat when the American leans in, visibly suppressing agitation and anger, and shoves his forearm under Illya’s nose. The outline is just as sharp as Illya remembers. Napoleon advances on him like a tidal wave. The sheets feel rough and gritty when Illya’s bare back hits the bed. Rough and gritty like sand. Any words that Illya tries to force out feel just the same. 

And Napoleon just stretches out on the bed beside him, so that they are side-by-side, and stays there, as unmovable as a cliff. Napoleon’s arms are surprisingly gentle when they close around Illya, the embrace engulfing them both like water. 

Napoleon’s lips are tentative, like waves lapping at the shore.

Now, everything is even worse.

**Author's Note:**

> Saint Helena: a volcanic tropical island in the South Atlantic Ocean, one of the most remote islands in the world; named after Roman Empress Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta; place of final exile and death of French Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte.
> 
> Solovetsky Islands: an archipelago in the Onega Bay of the White Sea, consisting of six islands; the setting of the Russian Orthodox Solovetsky Monastery complex, Solovki special purpose camp, Solovki prison, naval cadet school and naval training division of the Soviet Northern Fleet.


End file.
